Clown/Lemon Drop is the yellow Torenia. It appears you had no trouble growing it but I've read that particular color can be troublesome. Your M.B.'s are gorgeous too. They are beautiful right after being planted but amazing in August too. I'm having a bit of trouble with a pot I just planted. It's the one with spike plant in the center which did GREAT for me last year in the same pot, but I wanted to try some different plants with it this year so I bought Purple Knight which is the alternanthera. It looks a lot like sweet potato vine, same dark purple and has a very similar growth habit. It's just what they had at my local nursery so I decided to go for it. But, I've completely lost one of the torenia already and two of the purple knight plants have some brown spotting on the leaves. We've had a lot of rain and I'm wondering if that might have anything to do with the spotting but also, I'm wondering if it has to do with my soil so I'm probably going to be buying yet ANOTHER bag of that this weekendand re-potting the whole thing. I tried mixing old soil with a little new and I'm having doubts about that working. I've always read how it shouldn't be done and that pots are supposed to be sterilized from year to year but frankly, I get tired of buying new soil every year and I guess I'm just impatient and want instant beauty without all the extra work. Oh well, just one more example of how cutting corners only ends up costing twice the money and twice the time. grrr. :-) BTW, sure wish I could figure out how to attach pics. to my e-mails so you could get a visual on my feeble attempts! I'll keep trying.

Yeah, I'm with ya now! Buds'll do it every time. As for leaf morphology, can we agree there is variability? Shagbark and shellbark hickory up in these parts are quite rounded. Both white and green ash are middling, and black ash is narrow. But the trees don't read the books, and sometimes they exhibit their own idea of how they should present themselves. Truth is, if I couldn't tell one from the other out in the field, it would def. be time to find a new job. But in such cases as that, the whole tree is being viewed, sort of like how some guys can see a car coming down the road from three blocks away and say it's a Ford or whatever. They're not looking at the fine details but rather, the whole picture. This is how I-and I would guess most of you-ID trees 90% of the time. +oM

p.s. i am new on uploading pics; how do i upload more than one pic at a time? thanks for your help. koko

Thanks for the link, GGG! I will try Muhly grass again and hope for the best (soil is not too clay-heavy). I also need some container ideas so i might use Fescue in a pot. I did a bit of browsing and came up with this list, which I'm trying to choose from - Natives - -Eragrostis elliottii and/or spectablis (blue and purple love grass) -Panicum virgatum (switch grass) - blue or reddish color -Schizachyrium scoparium "The Blues" (little bluestem) Non-natives - -Calamagrostis "Overdam" (feather reed grass) -Deschampsia "Bronze Veil" (tufted hair grass) -Miscanthus "Morning Light" -Pennisetum alopecuroides "National Arboretum" (black fountain grass) Shorties - -Carex "frosted curls" and -Carex "Lemon Zest" Of these, I can only find some suggestion of invasiveness for Miscanthus, although I'm not sure whether that would be invasive here or not. I dont know of a good supplier in town for grasses, so I will probably order online once I narrow it down (all of this list came from Lazy S's page). If anyone has any feedback on these specific plants (or other suggestions), I'd love to hear.